Nicola Gobbo wanted $30m to go into witness protection, Lawyer X commission told

Nicola Gobbo boasted she orchestrated the seizure of $80m in assets as a secret police informer and wanted a large share of the pie, the Lawyer X royal commission has heard.

Nicola Gobbo.

Gangland barrister turned snitch Nicola Gobbo boasted she “single-handedly orchestrated” the seizure of $80 million worth of assets during her role as a secret police informer.

And in mid-2009, she was demanding a piece of the pie.

The woman dubbed Lawyer X told her police handlers she wanted $30 million or a percentage of assets seized by Victoria Police in exchange for entering the witness protection program.

“Happy to go (to a secret location) with my 30 million,” Gobbo told handlers.

“Tell Simon (Overland) to tell those idiots to be flexible, VicPol has cost me millions and my health,” file notes on the lengthy negotiations in 2009 revealed.

It came as police were mounting pressure on Gobbo to appear as a witness against former detective Paul Dale.

But Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius told the Royal Commission into the legal scandal today that he had dismissed Gobbo’s claims that she was entitled to millions of dollars as “ranting and raving”.

“I actually don’t recall attaching any weight to what she was saying,” Mr Cornelius said.

“If anything, I think I regarded what she was saying here as ... diatribe or self-interested puff,” he said.

The commission heard officers spent in excess of 75 hours on phone calls to Gobbo attempting to persuade her to join witness protection but her resistance was “unwavering”.

During this period, concerns were raised about Gobbo’s deteriorating mental health, the commission heard, with Mr Cornelius recounting an incident where she stabbed herself with a pen before later claiming it was “an accident”.

In a later letter penned by the snitching lawyer to then Assistant Commissioner Simon Overland, Gobbo said she had voluntarily offered Victoria Police “unprecedented assistance” for four years “absent of any reward”.

Mr Cornelius said he remembered being briefed on the contents of the letter and recalled Gobbo being “upset”.

“I’m not surprised she was upset because we were not acceding to her demands,” Mr Cornelius told the commission.

“We wanted her to come into the witness protection program,” he said.

Mr Cornelius said by that time he had become aware Gobbo was threatening to launch legal action against Victoria Police and her letter was forwarded on to police lawyer, Findlay McRae.